The subject of the invention is a logical board game involving a playing area of regular hexagonal cells, and pieces. The cells are congruent geometrical figures. The subject of the invention is also a game-of-chance board game involving a playing area of regular hexagonal cells as well as a roulette cylinder and/or tumbling die or other random number generator and/or computer and tokens.
The invented games are played on a special playing area (board). Industrial design patents numbers D03 00347 and D03 00348 describe a similar special playing area pattern.
The board games that are the subject of this invention belong to two sub-categories, namely logical board games (I) and games that involve elements of games of chance (II).
Chess belongs to the sub-category of logical board games (I). A characteristic of the board games described in the invention is the fact that the same board can also be used for playing logical games such as horse race, pawn war, French chess (also known as “Giveaway Chess,” but referred to as “French Chess” throughout), halma, pyramid, checkers (shashki), and triangles (merelles).
The games described in the invention are further characterized by the fact that, when the starting setup is defined randomly (by means of a draw), the same board can also be used for playing several, already existing, board games that involve elements of games of chance. Thus, using the chess pieces, several roulette-like games can be played such as (chess-) queen roulette, rook-bishop roulette, king-knight-2 pawns roulette and lotto chess, as well as lotto, roulette, dreidel, and blackjack. This feature distinguishes the invented games from any formerly known (reform) chess games.
I have given my invention the commercial name Polgár Superstar® board game indicating that these games are members of the Polgár Superstar® family of games that are playable on the Polgár Superstar® six-pointed star-shaped board. (In the present description of the invention, instead of the term “board” I will mostly use the more specific expression “playing area”, also formerly referred to as the “playing field”. Also, I have substituted the term “field” or “cell” with the term “primary playing field”.)
One of the most ancient known games, chess, which dates back more than 2,000 years, has a playing area of 8×8 square-shaped cells organized into vertical columns and horizontal rows usually on a board, table or box surface, and a set of playing pieces comprising two times 16 pieces and pawns. The pieces are shaped as figures that act in accordance with their established roles within the rules of the game. During the past five hundred years the game has been played according to the same rules as a game for two players who oppose one another as “white” and “black” in accordance with the starting move. All this is indicative of the strict rules of this traditional game.
The large number of pieces and cells, according to the rules, results in such a large number of move combinations that the game of chess is regarded allover the world as an intellectual pursuit highly suitable for developing complex combinative abilities and, consequently for realizing various strategic and tactical concepts.
It is no coincidence that, alongside traditional chess (8×8 board, FIDE-rules), a large number of reform chess ideas have also been published. Several innovations have been attempted in order to make the game more dynamic.
One opportunity lies in changing the size of the board, or the shape and geometry of the playing area. Thus, a smaller board may result in a certain simplification and can speed up the game since, logically, fewer pieces can be placed on the smaller board bearing in mind the reduced size of the playing area. Examples of such commercially available games are the well-known Alapo, Apocalypse, Archer, Baby, Benighted, Bird, Chessence, Los Alamos, Microchess I and II, and Minichess I, II, III and IV. Larger boards that require the inclusion of more pieces, sometimes involving new pieces (typically major pieces, with new ways of moving and capturing), make it possible for more than two people to play on the same board at the same time. One example of this is Paulovits chess (1931), which is played on a 10×10 board, and others are those games detailed in Hungarian patent descriptions 130.346 and 187.705. The overwhelming majority of these reform chess games, however, did not result in the desired acceleration while preserving the traditional values—particularly the high-level intellectual pleasure produced by the clashing of minds—of the game. The majority of reform chess versions have become over-complicated, the playing areas confusing, and the games slow and heavy.
Another option is to vary the basic setup. In traditional chess the basic setup is fixed, and characterized by symmetry and the opposition of pieces. In my game the placement of major pieces on the base-line—both in terms of position and order—is optional, making it possible to checkmate the opponent in just one move!
Grandmaster Pal Benko published his version of reform chess, Prechess, in 1978. Here, the placement of the major pieces in the basic setup is not determined and can be asymmetrical. Prechess, however, has not become widespread. American chess genius Robert Fischer also proposed a non-determined placement of the major pieces, while preferring to maintain the symmetrical basic setup of the major pieces (white pieces opposite to the equivalent black ones).
Star-shaped chessboards have already been invented by many others. The chess game known as “Baltic Four-Handed” in the technical literature (L. Kieseritzky, 1835?), for example, can be played on an eight-pointed star-shaped chessboard. Hungarian patent description 168.051 details a board game that involves an eight-pointed star-shaped playing field comprising 128 congruent rhomboid-shaped fields.
Besides square-shaped cells the chessboard can be “paved” with fields of other geometrical shapes. Diamond Chess, for example, features triangular cells.
The technical literature contains mention of several playing areas made up of hexagonal playing fields that connect like the cells of a honeycomb (The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, Games and Puzzles Publications, © D. B. Pritchard, Surrey, UK 1994): “Hyperchess”, “King's Colour” page 363; “Hexachess”, page 138, and “Hexagonal chess”, pages 138-145. There are dozens of versions of reform chess in which the board is made up of hexagonal fields, such as Chessex, Chessnik, En Garde, Galachess, Haynie's Hexagonal Chess, Hexabeast, Hexmate, Hexachess, Hexagonal, Hexagonia, Hexchad, Hex, Hexchess, Hexshogi, Ludus Chessunculus, Mi Arena Chex, Mini Hexchess, Three-Handed Hexagonal, Triangular, Tri, Trimex, Triscia, Triss, Troy, Chazz Hyperchess, King's Colour, Mars, Quatrechess, etc.
In 1978, Nerida Fay Ellerton invented a six-pointed star-shaped chessboard paved with hexagons—containing as many as 400 fields in three different colours, making the game complicated and cumbersome. Details of the game are given in British patent description GB 2 033 239, and the star-shaped playing area divided into hexagonal fields is represented in diagram 4. The playing area represented in the diagram significantly differs from the starshaped playing area described in our study. The board shown there is not suitable for fulfilling the functions that I have set out for the games I have devised. Over the past 25 years, I have no information about the spread of the games mentioned in the above document.